Scenes from the life of St Paul the Apostle, including a baptism (lower left), carved in relief in an archivolt over entrance to basilica of Monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll in Girona province, Catalonia, Spain. The entrance was sculpted in the mid-1100s in Lombard Romanesque style. In the archivolt above St Paul are a stag, a bird and other animal and plant motifs.
Monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll, Girona province, Catalonia, Spain: west entrance to the basilica of the Benedictine monastery of Ripoll. The monastery was founded by Count Wilfred “The Hairy” (Count Guifré el Pelós) and his wife Guinedilda in the 800s and consecrated in the 900s, but radically restored in the 1800s. The basilica was established by Abbot Oliba in 1032. The west entrance, sculpted in the mid-1100s, is in the Lombard artistic style and is considered one of the finest examples of Lombard Romanesque sculpture. It was damaged in a fire of 1835 and subsequently restored. Made with blocks of sandstone approximately one metre wide, the entrance was conceived as an arch of triumph with seven archivolts and the facade on either side divided into seven horizontal strips. There is no tympanum. The entrance is fully sculpted with biblical, historical and allegorical scenes, plant and geometric motifs, signs of the Zodiac, and monsters. It is often referred to as the “Stone Bible”. At the beginning of the Romanesque period, around the year 1000, Catalonia moved away from Carolingian and Mozarabic artistic influences and, unlike the rest of the Iberian Peninsula, was influenced during the medieval period by Italy rather than France. The builders were nomadic artists known as Lombardi who began to build in Catalonia in the 1000s and remained prevalent in this region well into the Gothic period. In the 900s, the Monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll prospered. It became a cultural centre of reference in medieval Europe, its library being home to valuable religious, technical and legal documents. However, all that could be saved from looting and fire in 1835 were 231 volumes, now at the Royal Archive of Aragón.
Size: 4256px × 2832px
Location: Monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll, Girona province, Catalonia, Spain
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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